Posted in: Comics | Tagged: ComicConnect, hulk, jack kirby, marvel, stan lee, vintage, vintage comics

Incredible Hulk #1 CGC 9.2 Sells For Record $375,000

Published Wed, 28 Sep 2016 19:00:47 -0500

Last updated Wed, 28 Sep 2016 19:04:23 -0500

Vintage comics seller and auction house ComicConnect just announced that the sale of the Incredible Hulk #1 CGC 9.2 Northland copy for $375,000 earlier this month. That's a new record for this key 1962 Marvel comic created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and featuring the first appearance of one of Marvel's best-known characters.

The sale eclipses the previous record for an Incredible Hulk #1, as this same copy sold for $326,000 in August 2014, which itself followed on the heels of a $320,000 sale of another 9.2 copy by ComicConnect just two months previously.

Prior to that, this same Incredible Hulk #1 CGC 9.2 Northland sold for $117,500 on Comiclink in 2008, and in 2004, Pedigree Comics reported that they had sold it for $75,000 (trade value) in a group transaction which included high grade copies of #1-6 (and there's something you don't see every day).

The Northland pedigree surfaced in the mid-1990s from an original owner in Michigan and was brought to market by Motor City Comics. It contains extensive runs of several important titles in high grade — including series from Marvel, DC, Charlton, and others — and books from the collection typically has the superior page quality that often makes pedigrees from cooler northern climates desirable.

When I spoke to ComicConnect's Vincent Zurzolo about the June 2014 $320,000 sale, he was optimistic about its impact on sales of copies across the spectrum of grades, and the subsequent two years of sales data show that he was not wrong.

I feel a chart coming on a bit later I think, but in the meantime, scanning a few sales, a very recent $275,000 sale of a CGC 9.0 copy catches my eye, as does the sale of a CGC 8.0 copy in April for $70,000, and this CGC 6.5 for $30,200 in December 2015.

There are four copies of this issue graded CGC 9.2 and one copy graded higher — the census-topping CGC 9.4 copy which is in the collection of a well-known high-grade Marvel collector and unlikely to be on the market anytime soon.